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Renamed

I've renamed this article back to Baby 81 (its original name) and removed all references to the child's real name, for obvious reasons. --Tony Sidaway 14:03, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

What obvious reasons are those, Tony? --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:17, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

This is a little bizarre, when a google search for "Baby 81" finds BBC reports like these plus dozens more from other (non-Misplaced Pages-derived) sources.

Is this child's name a secret? Are we not permitted to have articles on minors now? -- ALoan (Talk) 16:40, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

That's what some would like. I'm reverting this. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:49, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Do not move this article on a minor back to the name of the minor, or add the name of the minor to the article. There are serious Biographies of living persons concerns here. --Tony Sidaway 20:29, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Name them. Support your claim or I'll revert back again. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:42, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

The previous article name was that of a four-month-old baby. Please add this to the arbitration case if you wish to dispute Misplaced Pages's right to act on such concerns. --Tony Sidaway 20:54, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

"Four month old baby" is not part of BLP. Again, what justification are you using - if you want to add it to ArbCom go right ahead, but that simply avoids the question. Two separate people are questioning your activity here. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:56, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm surprised that you're questioning this, to be honest. You yourself said on my talk page just three days ago "For the record, current minors is an area we shouldn't touch. I don't disagree with that. You want to draw a clear line, that's a good one." . Could you explain your apparent change of heart? --Tony Sidaway 21:10, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Which arbitration case?

Tony, are you seriously suggesting that using the name of a minor is a WP:BLP issue, even if rock solid sources are provided? How so? In this case, the name is reported in many sources (along with "Baby 81", as I point out above - the first one says "Baby 81 became a symbol of tsunami suffering ... Murugupillai and Jenita Jeyarajah said the boy was their son, Abhilasha ..." with a picture). And the subject is not four months old now - he was apparently four months old in February 2005, so it presumably about 2½ now. Is there a magic age when the youth of an article's subject ceases to be a relevant criterion? 14? 16? 18? 21? 25? Or perhaps we should have no biographical articles until the subject is dead (goodbye Tony Blair and George W. Bush - hmm, perhaps this is a good idea). -- ALoan (Talk) 22:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Tony, can you justify your claim or not? --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:38, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I've justified my claim by reference to Jeff's own words in response to Newyorkbrad's well argued deletion of two well sourced articles about minors. I'd like Jeff to explain why he has changed his mind on this. --Tony Sidaway 22:42, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I already admitted I was hasty in such a statement. NYB and I are on the same page. Now, justify your claim please. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:09, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I've justified it. I agree with Jeff three days ago and I disagree with Jeff now. Is that clear? --Tony Sidaway 05:48, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

No, you've made no justification, in fact. You've simply said "BLP" with no actual argument. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:07, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I have followed your link, Tony, but I don't see the connection between two minors who were victims of crime (and presumably not particuarly notable, however horrific the crimes) and a child who was a "symbol of tsunami suffering". I repeat: are we being encouraged to delete all articles about any living person below a particular age? Why? -- ALoan (Talk) 23:08, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

For example, there are a number of very young people listed in Category:2007 births. Will we be deleting Princess Ariane of the Netherlands and others? How about Leo Blair? How about the hundreds at Category:1990 births? -- ALoan (Talk) 23:20, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I have not deleted this article, nor have I had anyone else delete it, nor have I attempted to do so. Please address the situation at hand. --Tony Sidaway 05:48, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Right. So we are allowed to have articles on minors. Good. So the next question is, why is this article unable to mention the name of its subject? Should we be renaming Leo Blair as Tony Blair's youngest son or Tony Blair's fourth child? And should Princess Ariane of the Netherlands be Third child of Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange? How do we decide when the name of a child is prohibited? -- ALoan (Talk) 09:18, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Those are all interesting questions. I do not propose to respond to them because they are not relevant to this article. This one was pretty obvious, though, because the name of the child is irrelevant. --Tony Sidaway 09:47, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I am just trying to discern what rule you are applying here. How can the name of a person be irrelevant to an article about them? We mention the names of both parents, and provide links to sources that name the child. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:13, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

The thinking here is that the name of the child is no longer useful as a google search term to find this article, so the information will not follow him around as an adult. The child's name is irrelevant because it has no bearing on the case. --Tony Sidaway 11:36, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

So we are deliberatly obscuring this easily available information to stop it following the child around? As if someone typing his name into Google won't find a hundred articles (from the BBC and other major sources!) giving the information that we are supressing?

In 50 years time, when someone asks themselves "what was the name of that baby who caused such a fuss after the Asian tsunami" and thinks "I know, I will check it on Misplaced Pages", they will come away disappointed? -- ALoan (Talk) 11:58, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

So you noticed that Misplaced Pages is not a newspaper archive? We have progress! We're not the BBC, and we're not another major source. We're Wikpedia and we have ethics. --Tony Sidaway 20:38, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

How do you know "that the name of the child is no longer useful as a google search term"? People do research in many different ways. The child's real name is available, and it's not going to disappear anytime soon. Someone might find that name on another website and use it as a search term here. If it were me, and I were looking for more information about the baby, I'd probably begin my search by using the child's real name, and not a nickname.

At the very least, the child's real name should exist in the form of a redirect. I would appreciate a more detailed explanantion as to how the name is a BLP issue. 76.197.234.163 05:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

You misunderstand me. The removal of the name from Misplaced Pages was done with the intention of making the name useless as a search term for the article, in the interests of privacy. Why? Because, well, we try not act like pieces of shit. --Tony Sidaway 05:30, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

How does including a child's real name, when that name is easily available in established sources, make us "pieces of shit"? Just assume I'm very slow, and explain it to me, in detail. You haven't given a very strong argument, IMO. 76.197.234.163 05:35, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Well my point is that, because we aren't, we look for ways in which we could be harming privacy for no good reason. And one way is in putting the child's name into the article. The sole reason for the article in the first place is the fuss over identification of the baby and the tussle involving the parents, the hospital and the court; having made the decision to cover it, in all that the child's actual identity is insignificant for our purposes as an encyclopedia. On the other hand if we kept the name in it would impact the privacy of the child. --Tony Sidaway 06:04, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Surely, in this particular case, the identity of the child was absolutely crucial? That was the whole reason for the fuss, etc. -- ALoan (Talk) 09:58, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

You confuse two situations. For the parents, the identification of the baby was of crucial importance and that's what makes the story. For us, the baby could have been called Fred Bloggs and the story would not be any different. --Tony Sidaway 16:48, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

You may be surprised at the number of articles I have written based on obituaries that appear in broadsheet newspapers. Newspapers, and the BBC, are excellent sources; not perfect, of course, but they have a reputation to defend, and have the time and funding to indulge in extensive fact-checking. But are you saying that they don't have ethics too? Or that their ethics are somehow inferior to the ethics of Misplaced Pages?

You seem to think it is somehow contrary to the purpose of an encyclopedia to include the name of a person who was involved in current (and in due course) historical) event - that the name is not notable, perhaps? I still don't see how this turns into a claim that BLP is in point. -- ALoan (Talk) 21:29, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

This is one of the reasons that people shouting "BLP" are encountering resistance. The name gets over 2000 hits and details an international story where the name was very public. Us censoring the name merely lessens our coverage of a significant world event. violet/riga (t) 23:36, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Our references contain the name. I'm not noticing much resistance. The community seems to be very much behind us. --Tony Sidaway 03:57, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Then you're not paying attention, Tony. Plain and simple. --badlydrawnjeff talk 05:01, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

How many people are aware that this discussion, and the BLP discussions in general, are actually going on? From what I can tell, the vast majority of editors and readers don't pay much attention to these community debates until the repercussions directly affect their contributions or favorite articles. I was an active editor in early 2006, for example, yet I was completely unaware of the whole Brian Peppers thing.

I think it's a bit hasty to declare that the entire community agrees with you. For the record, I think badlydrawnjeff and ALoan represent the voices of reason here. Zagalejo 06:18, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Well then you may be in for more than a few surprises. --Tony Sidaway 23:53, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

What does that mean? Cryptic comments don't help. Zagalejo 23:57, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Right, so there are two admins and three others that believe that the name should be included despite what it says at WP:BLP. At which point does general consensus override the individual? Please don't say that consensus can't override policy because the issue is the reading of the policy and the consensus would be that it does not violate it. violet/riga (t) 07:23, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

This is an interesting question. Add it to the arbitration case. --Tony Sidaway 14:54, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that it's really something that the arbcom are going to want to decide on. It should be down to consensus and how we feel that BLP applies. Since five people appear to believe that the name can be included I will soon, without further objection, be including the name within the article and as a redirect. violet/riga (t) 14:35, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Tony, as far as I can see, the only person I can see arguing for omission of the name in this case is you. And there are plenty of other people her who disagree. I would say that consensus is very much against you here. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:19, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Arbcom

Interested readers may like to see Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Badlydrawnjeff, which seems to be the ArbCom case mentioned above. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Name in article or sources?

One side of the argument seems to be that if the sources include the name, we can. The other side seems to be that if the sources include the name, we can choose not to (letting readers go to the sources to find out the name if they want to). First, to forestall the "Misplaced Pages needs to record all of history" argument, we should assume that all information included in a Misplaced Pages article will still be available in various sources in 10 years time (maybe not the same ones, but some sources should still remain). If not, then history has passed its verdict and the information should be passed from Misplaced Pages to a "possibly this happened but we aren't really sure any more" wiki. In that vein, I tend to agree that including the name is not necessary here. Once the living person dies, their name can be placed in the article. The only other issue I have a question about is how Google searches work if a name appears in a Misplaced Pages page title, as opposed to appearing simply in a brief footnote to an article. Is the result on a Google search the same? Carcharoth 11:50, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The title of the article features in the URL, which is given a higher priority over the rest of the text in Google's search results. violet/riga (t) 23:00, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

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